Any doubts as to the legitimacy of this Northwestern team were put to bed on Saturday, as the Wildcats came one redzone conversion short of sending the game at No. 6 Ohio State into overtime. But after a costly holding penalty forced Northwestern into an eventual field goal and Ohio State quarterback J.T. Barrett ran for 35 yards on 3rd and 10, the Wildcats, despite a terrific effort, left Columbus with the loss everyone expected them to take.
"Right now, our record says we're an average football team," Pat Fitzgerald said after the loss.
Perhaps such a simplistic criteria for assessing this team is too harsh; Northwestern sits at 3-2 in conference play with the two Big Ten losses coming to teams ranked inside the top 10 of the College Football Playoff Ranking.